I am sad to report that my Uncle Ken died of pancreatic cancer in England day before yesterday. My Uncle Stan, who lives in Australia, sent me an email and I got a Skype message from my cousin in England to have my Dad call his sister in England from his house in Manteca, as he doesn't have a computer. Ain't technology great? The weirder part? I am closer to England than both of them. Dad can't go to the funeral and neither can Uncle Stan as both of their wives don't fly. My Uncle Stan is married to an Eileen. Eileen Caplin. He told me about my Uncle Ken's wife Eileen. I told him that it's hard to keep all of these Eileens straight and then he remembered that her name is actually Vivian. Which is good because I bought a sympathy card and was about to mail it from the British Post Office to Eileen Caplin #2 when he sent me another email correcting the name. He's in his 80's so it's OK. I am just impressed that he can email. Next time I am double checking in my snail mail address book. Remember those? You have all these entries that have been crossed out as your friends move, get married, get divorced, etc. Then come Christmas time you get really confused because you can't remember which address is current? Or what your friend changed her last name to. No, only me? Fine. Use your computer labels. Actually we did that a couple of years ago.
Spent yesterday morning in morning crisis mode. Got a call from one of the Medics about a guy who couldn't pee for 20 hours. {Insert grimace, "ouch" here} They tried to put a catheter in him but no go, so he got a helicopter ride. Except we had thunderstorms and he might possibly not be able to get out and what did he want me to do? First, tell him to stop jumping up and down, bent over on one leg. Second start praying to the weather Gods. That actually worked and he was medevac'd to the Role 3 where they got a cath in him and drained out 2000cc of fluid. I heard the "Ahhhh" from my office. Talk about the pause that refreshes. We can't take the Foley cath out and I need to send him home to see an urologist on a commercial flight. So the Role 3 nurses and I are trying to figure out how to disguise it. First find shoes to match his bag...
My morning routine is to go and buy a "smoothie" and a granola with hot milk. While there a guy asked if he could talk to me about a problem. I never say no, so I sat down and heard about his problem which was “a little hole in my foot." "Come down and see me at sick call," says I, "and I'll take care of it."
He said he had a little bit of diabetes in the past and was concerned about foot care, which is always a concern with diabetics. So, as I was reading my email in my office, one of the medics, Zach (or Jack as Karki calls him, he can't pronounce Z's) stood in the doorway looking pale. "Um Doc, you may want to come look at this, I'm not sure what to do with his foot." No worries. We'll put a dressing on it or maybe some stitches. I entered the room and saw this: {insert content warning here, really, don't look}
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